robin "not fucking roberta" proudfoot (observe) wrote in cultureic, @ 2017-07-02 21:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | robin proudfoot |
Who: Robin Proudfoot, with a few mentions of others as cameos
When: 2034 (text), 2017-2035 (dividers)
What: Whatever happened to Katy Jane Robin?
Notes: I'm not 100% happy with this, but I also don't like leaving a character in the wind. There's a little blood in one of the pictures and Robin's usual language if that bothers people. There's very choppy pacing and it goes back and forth in terms of timelines. I tried not to step on anyone's toes and only referenced characters where I knew what happened to them/what the player planned but if I did, I apologise and can edit. Employ some suspension of disbelief since AS is not going to be 40 any time soon. This is also pure self indulgent fluff with a heap of ambiguity, so don't say I didn't warn you.
(ROBIN PROUDFOOT, EPILOGUE)
“I don't have to listen,” Robin replied. She was steadfastly reading her paper and refusing to look up. She wasn't going to have her fucking breakfast ruined by that fucking book. It had been all anyone was talking about for a week now and it was beginning to piss her off. Actually, she was already pissed off, she was beginning to want to rip it to shreds and put all of her substantial know how into investigating the anonymous author. They knew just enough that it was recognisable but not enough that it was accurate. A dangerous mix, but utter sensationalist drivel either way. “I was there.”
She’d anticipated a moody grumble in response, and boy, was she not disappointed.
“But you didn't see anything cool?” “I was busy!” She had been! It wasn’t like they did instant replays for taking down the Dark Lord. She'd been dealing with Elsie, who was no slouch in the dueling department no matter what else she lacked going for her. Then Abel had been too shaken by Dorcas' death to deal with his own arrest, so she'd pulled double duty. Speaking of, she needed to hext him about his new classes. Anyway, then she'd gone to find Andy who'd had one of his Avery snits so it wasn't as if she had time to snap pics. “Ask Emmeline next time she's here.”
“I thought I wasn't supposed to.”
Sighing into her cereal, Robin conceded. She had asked that no one badger Emme about it. The war had sent her to hell and back, with her losses as fucked as anyone's. She didn’t need to be hounded in her private time too. “She ripped the tossers heart out with magic. It was super cool, because Emmeline is super cool. Even when we were kids, she was so fucking cool. If we’d had a yearbook, she would have been under Most Likely To Save The World. Okay?”
toastwhisperer | ||
9 likes toastwhisperer The shiny hasn't worn off yet. Even the diesel fuel calling itself coffee is worth smiling about! 😊😊😊 #newpeopleoldjob #chewiewerehome #dmle #aurorlife #30day1 | ||
“What are you doing?”
“Making a list,” Robin said, tapping her pen against the page. Sometimes, it felt good to be a little bit retro and break out the old stationery supplies. Across the page in her signature scruffy script, Robin had written four names: Clee, Fi, Henry and Andromeda. She figured Elsie Flint, Azkaban extraordinaire was going to require her own section. Lo would too, considering all she'd had was weapons charges in the end. They really did have the most dramatic year possible. And after the ‘05ers, that definitely said something.
“Why?”
“I'm always making lists,” Robin replied, distractedly. She reached over the table for her notebook with the fuzzy blue fur. She was pretty sure that had the '05ers in there. How she was going to categorise Caradoc she had no idea. Nearly two decades on and she still had no fucking clue how to handle that revelation.
“But why?”
“Lists are great!” And only 30% sarcasm. (because lists really are great)
“But what is it?”
That was a complicated question. She didn't have to being doing this list at all, but the idea of no longer having any access to the original files and her experiences with CAV lead her to want everything categorised. T-Minus whatever many days. She needed to get her files in the office in order too. No one was going to find her filing Benjy under Napoleon Blown-A-Part very funny in a decade. She was pretty sure she'd actually complained about the filing done in her absense. (Even if she'd been lying. Jonah and Jo were nothing if not immaculate file keepers, even if the former gave off an air of can't be fucked) If she was leaving, they were going to be so damn perfect that people would think Rufus came back from the dead just to organise them. Besides, she wondered how many puns she’d managed to stick in there over the years that probably should come out. “Gotta get it all sorted before I go.”
“You won't really go.”
Robin lifted her eyes, a smirk and a challenge. “I live to surprise.” She tapped the names of her former classmates. “Unlike these guys.”
toastwhisperer | ||
4 likes toastwhisperer I'm drowning in paperwork. Adulting is hard, but looks like I'm finally getting a new place to live. #movinghouse #paperwork #30day174 | ||
“I think you have a problem.”
Categorising old notebooks always managed to elicit this sort of reaction no matter who was helping her shift the bulk, so Robin wasn’t surprised. They were tattered now, some of them and others she hadn’t looked at in years. But they needed the space and most of it could be packed up and put in the garage. Who would need to know the notes on possible imperius suspects in the wake of the Christmas Massacre now?
“Why do you keep so much stuff?”
Robin shrugged. Maybe some of it should have gone into evidence, but mostly it was her own multicoloured ramblings and not solid evidence at all. Yaxley had joked with her once that she kept them for blackmail purposes. Maybe that was true to an extent. There were still Death Eaters out there. Maybe there always would be. Wasn’t that a pleasant fucking thought?
“They’re mine,” She said, simply. Because it was true. Even approaching twenty years on, she still liked to know that she could look up where she was on a night during an attack or who had taken what case. She could still see coffee stains and ink runs, torn out pages and the occasional scribble: Lou, Andy, even Finn. “They’re history. And they remind me that whatever twaddle is getting spewed before the anniversary, I know what really happened.”
toastwhisperer | ||
5 likes toastwhisperer SDCC!!!! #bestpresentever #igotmytickets #firstinternationalcon #31day201 | ||
“Who came up with CAV?”
Robin paused mid-coffee drink. Disturbingly, she wasn't she could remember. She knew up until that point, they'd been calling it the rebel alliance for a while but all in all, she couldn't remember if it was Gawain or Amelia who put the name forward. Damn it, she was getting bloody old to remember all of this off the bat. “We decided on it together. Amelia Bones wasn't too hot on calling a legit organisation the Rebel Alliance.”
“But that's a cooler name!”
Robin raised her drink. “Amen to that, kid.”
A book of the events by someone who wasn't there that's full of shit. How shocking. “I’ve seen the killing curse enough times to know that wasn’t it. Aurors used to fucking learn it.” She tapped the book. “Absolute fucking hogwash, this crap. Read something else.”
She could feel his gaze on her and she scanned over what she just said looking for the discomfort area. She waited it out. He could never stay quiet for long.
"Does that mean you know the Killing curse?"
"Nah," Robin waved him off. "I was morally opposed, Andy was too fucking young and one Auror went off the fucking deep end from it and joined the Death Eaters. I got no problem not touching that shit and if you ever touch that shit, I'm siccing Savage on you. Murdering someone with a single curse is not worthy of reverence. You touch that shit and you'll only end up fucked. Alright?"
She might have been harsh with him, but she thought of everything that happened once Aurors were allowed to use them and everything that happened later. Imelda died. Gawain's whole family got fucked with. Same with Andy. Tris is dead. Finn fucked off. Jo, last time she heard, was working as some kind of bounty hunter (and wasn't that an image). Jonah was [...]
(There were some people she very purposefully did keep tabs on, but refused to admit or talk about it. Even with herself. But it wasn't just about her anymore, was it?)
toastwhisperer | ||
4 likes toastwhisperer Happy 30th Birthday, Asshole. #bff #tbt | ||
“It’s real?!”
Robin shot him a look of disgust. “You think I’d put some Easter fair shit on my wall? Of course it’s real.”
True to her word, Cora had kept her one of the wanted posters. True to her own, Robin had it framed and put up in the bedroom when she’d moved out of her sisters and her new place over a decade ago and then again, eleven years ago when they'd moved here. She still looked at it with a sense of pride. Her own moment of utter rebellion against a corrupt system.
“Then why does it say Roberta?”
“Because it’s my name.” A smile ghosted as she thought of the reactions people had to her name, ranging from ‘it doesn’t suit you’ to ‘how did I not know about this'. Of course, he already knew that was her name, right? She had mentioned it. Her mum had to have called her that. Well, mostly she said 'your mother' in a way that still made her feel like she was going to get grounded.
“Your name is Roberta?”
“You’ve heard me called Bobby before.”
“I thought it was short for Robin!” Whoops. Maybe she hadn’t said anything. “Don’t get at me about it, I didn’t choose my name. I didn’t choose yours either, no matter what your Mum says!” She shrugged. “Besides, it was mostly because Evan bloody Rosier was being a little shit.”
toastwhisperer | ||
14 likes toastwhisperer You've taken your first steps into a larger world. #noiamyourmother | ||
“Why don’t you have a ring?”
Robin shrugged. It had felt too conventional at the time. It hadn’t been a conventional relationship, they weren’t conventional people and the entire wedding had been a come as you aren’t party. Except for her, she was most definitely Han Solo and anyone who said otherwise was a filthy liar. “I punch people too much. I’d get blood on it.”
“You could just punch people less."
[....] is an emotion, right?
"Okay, okay, I get it.”
It was good to know she could still glare with the best of them. In fact, it was a glare upgrade: parent edition.
“Did they ever catch up to any of them that escaped?”
Robin thought for a moment of holidays, of catching the briefest glimpse and a familiar singing voice. It wasn't something she was going to get into.
She ground her teeth. “There’s still time.”
toastwhisperer | ||
2 likes toastwhisperer Fucking Ministry galas are CURSED | ||
“Can we go yet?”
Robin flinched, irritated that they were here, irritated this was happening now and irritated someone had already looted the donuts in the break room. It was a bonanza of irritation. Fuck dark magic and whatever pureblood it rode in with. “I gotta go give this to Johnson, then we're outta here.”
Not for the first time, Robin could feel a pang when she went up to the office. No matter how many years passed, she still felt like she would turn around and see the same people. Imelda and Jo on one of their dream team ups. Williamson attempting to extol the virtues of yeast tea to an ever patient Kingsley. Roper's desk likely empty, because she was over at Cynthia's desk chatting away. Moody death glaring his paperwork while Frank tried to stop his ire from escalating. Yaxley shooting the shit with Afon, who'd likely wandered over to gloat about them having pizza night with the Hits. Andy trying to glare his coffee, piled high with cream and gingerbread. Robards, Johnson and Rufus trying to hold the pen together. Sometimes it stung but other times, it just reminded her she wasn't a kid anymore. She had living proof of that one spinning in her desk chair.
It’d been awhile since she’d seen Robards. His kids must be getting on a bit now, but they’d probably go to Beauxbatons.
She spotted Andy over at his desk as she walked back, usual paperwork glare evident. She smiled at that. No matter what, some things didn't change.
When she reached her own desk, the chair was jolting and she could see one of her pens being wielded in an approximation of a wand. Maybe a blaster, given given that 'pew pew' seemed to be the sound effect of choice.
The thought hit her like fucking Mjolnir. She ended up sitting back on Savage's desk. He must've asked her what was up more than once, because he managed to look slightly worried (angry-worried, which was almost comedic if you didn’t know the meaning behind it or couldn't read Savage like a shit book) sort of way that he did if he was thrown off. She was never going to get used to the the fucking beard.
She gestured vaguely towards her chair. “He thinks he's fighting Death Eaters.”
“Death Eaters.” Savage repeated. She knew he'd always been pissed not everyone was caught, so was she but it got under his skin in a way she might never get. “Specifically?”
“It's that stupid fucking book,” Robin grumbled. “We got a copy through and despite it being sensationalist bullshit, he likes it.”
“He's eleven. Of course he likes it.”
“Have you read it?”
The look on his face said it all.
“Fuck it, stupid question. It's trash anyway.” Robin dropped her head and sighed, before taking some of his coffee - diesel fuel, so she immediately coughed and wondered if her mouth would forever taste like tarmac on a hot day.
“what?” Somehow, with Savage, you could hear the lowercase when he went into it. She'd known him too long.
“I remember doing that.” Robin found that the foul coffee hadn't shifted the lump that had risen in her throat even a little. “Pretending to fight. Pretending to be an Auror. And don't even fucking say it, Savage, I'm trying to say I'm having a moment here.”
To his credit, he didn't call her a fucking sap. “Why is he here?”
She felt a little defensive almost immediately and had to temper the urge to smack him up the head. She was a fucking adult. She had to set some kind of example. Anyway, she knew it wasn't really a place for kids and it was unusual and it was just Savage savaging. “Gotta take him shopping in Diagon and I’m running late. Baby aurors everywhere. ”
“Shit.”
Yeah. That required no explanation. Shit, how had it been long enough for him to be going to Hogwarts? Shit, how had it been almost twenty years since they were the babies in this office and not part of the old guard? Shit, how long had it been since the take over or even the trials? Shit, how long had it been since Robin had spun around in her father's chair playing Auror? Too long and just long enough.
She swallowed hard. “Yeah.” She gave him a bit of elbow. “Told you we’d be fine, yeah?”
toastwhisperer | ||
22 likes toastwhisperer It's officially been twenty years since I left Hogwarts. R | ||
“Shh!”
“But--”
“Can you shhhh?!”
“But this shit is so inaccurate! I'm a trained Auror!”
The slouching zombies on the screen were taking blow after blow and not going down. One of them had even briefly been on fire. It was like they had no idea what a fucking zombie was. Robin was going to send them a copy of the Walking Dead and then throttle Beth for her choice of gifts.
“Like you'd be able to handle a zombie invasion.”
Maybe it hadn't been an invasion, but she had handled multiple zombies at the Hallowe'en Gala and lost a place to zombie Savage. She had enough business with the undead to last her three lifetimes.
“I handled it fine,” Robin sulked.
Robin groaned. When was this fascination with that stupid book going to end? Now it was being read aloud? Seriously? Why couldn't he go back to reading Lemony Snicket? “Plenty of Ministry departments had Death Eaters.” She yelled in from the front room, where the dog was trying to trip her up because he forgot he wasn't miniature anymore. Fuck it, and she sounded defensive. “The amount of Death Eaters in the DMLE is being grossly overrepresented. Especially before the takeover. ”
There was a beat of silence.
“Really?” “Yes!” Robin rolled her eyes, irritated by the fact they had to even have this conversation. “They make it sound like pretty much everyone was a Death Eater. ““They weren't?”
Robin poked her head in irritably, hopping to try and avoid the fucking cat. “I look like I bent for a psychotic Palpatine rip off to you, kid? More importantly, can you see fucking Savage doing that?”
“Okay.” The concession was evident in his voice. Robin could have punched the sky. “Andy would never be a Death Eater.”
Result.
Wait, hang on.
“Hey! You're saying I would?”
“I'm saying anyone who's met him would know that he would never ever.”
“Yeah, it's great he's always been an asshole and continues in true form, but can we come back to the me thing?”
The little shit was considering it. “... For advance Star Wars tickets?”
Robin had to grin at that. “Damn.” She snapped her fingers. “You found my achilles heel. Good thing you’re not a Death Eater.”
toastwhisperer | ||
2 likes toastwhisperer I'm getting too fucking old for this shit. I'm going to retire and take up needlepoint. #twblood #aurorlife #starwars | ||
“Did you ever get hurt?”
Though he didn't know it, this would be the question that would lead to everything. It had been asked innocently enough. They'd been talking about the twenty year memorial. It was natural he was curious. She'd come home enough times with cuts and bruises to believe she'd gotten hurt badly at some point.
“Sure, lots of times.”
“Really bad?”
“Sometimes.” Robin thought of the time she was visiting St. Mungo’s at least once a month and not even to see her sister. The things had prompted her to ask for help with her dueling. There had to be some fucking irony she'd asked the two people who'd turned out to be fucking Death Eaters – literally.
“Did you ever die though?”
Robin sucked in a breath, unable to stop her own mouth from going straight to the smart ass response. “Yes. I’m a ghost.” She waved her left hand around, since the right was busy injecting caffeine into her body. “Woooooo.”
“What was that?!”
“A ghost!” Robin insisted. Ghosts were supposed to go wooo and bump in the night, right? That was the stereotype? “Haven’t you seen a ghost before?”
“No!”
“Come September, you won't be able to say that.”
toastwhisperer | ||
2 likes toastwhisperer Happy 40th Birthday to my little sister. #happybirthday #32yearslater | ||
“What are you doing here?” From anyone else, it would have been an accusation but Beth was smiling brightly enough to burst when they came in her office door.
Robin grinned. “We were wand shopping and someone wants to show it off.”
“Oh!” She said, immediately coming down to his level. Beth had always been good at recognising when she might be frightening. It was one of the things that made her a good Healer and a great person to work around children. “What did you get?”
“Phoenix feather and holly! Apparently it's temperamental.”
It was also Lo’s old wand. Robin had been trying to remember why it had sounded familiar and then almost choked on her frappe when she realised it. She'd gotten into the habit of cross checking wands after her unpleasant Avery discussion.
“Well,” Beth said in a stage whisper, “We know who you get that from.”
Robin scowled at her sister, but sadly, her scowls hadn't worked on Beth in thirty years.
“Did you ever hurt anyone?”
“I hang around with a tiny ball of anger concentrate. What do you think?”
“I mean. Working.”
Of course, Robin had known what he meant. She’d been stalling. She was fully willing to talk about bar fights. She just wasn’t sure if this was a conversation she wanted to have. “There was a war on, kid. I hurt plenty of people and like shit did every single of them not have it coming.” Except for the imperius victims at the gala. She tried not to flinch at that particular memory. “Some people came quietly, but most put up a fight.”
“Who came quietly?”
The worst part of this is the inappropriate pun she could make were she talking to literally anyone else.
“Out of mine? Dolohov and Yaxley.”
That was not an image she wanted to consider. Ever.
“Is that who the statue was of?” They’d had fucking murder dealing with that statue at St. Mungo’s and Beth had complained about it more than once.
She shrugged. “His father.”
“They were both Death Eaters?”
Robin thought of the pureblood generation game with a hint of disgust. The Rosiers. The Avery’s. The Lestrange’s. The Meliflua’s. “I think a lot of the younger ones got indoctrinated in and it probably fucked them up really badly. Understandable motive, still murder. I’m trying to only fuck you up a little bit. You know, a regular amount.”
“What does un-doc-trinited mean?”
“Indoctrination is when you teach someone to believe something without freedom to question. That their belief is absolute.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Jesus, don’t swear. Your ma already thinks I swear around you too much.”
Thank fuck Savage wasn’t here.
If Robin was going to get tearful about this, she did not want to be fucking mocked for it later. Besides, there was a collective nervous energy on the platform what wasn’t helping anyone. Mostly strangers, but here and there, she could see familiar faces. She was pretty sure Al would be around here somewhere. Wasn’t one of his in their last year? Or was that the year before? Merlin fucking hell, they were all getting way too big way too fast. Megan had finished, which was fucking terrifying. It was mostly out of habit, this scanning the crowd so she shouldn’t have been too surprised to see familiar faces for other reasons. Certainly some of the younger lot had taken their pleas and she guessed by now, she should have guessed they’d have kids going to school. It made her feel worn in a way she hadn’t expected.
“What if they hate me?”
“No one's going to hate you.” Not strictly true, Robin knew from her own school days it could be lonely with even the best of people but she was trying to have a positive attitude here. “And if anyone tries anything, you go talk to the the professors. McG is Bad. Ass.”
“That’s telling,” He complained.
“Telling isn’t always bad.” Robin picked up his hand. “Besides, they give you any shit, you know how to throw a proper punch so you got a leg up.”
“Robin!”
toastwhisperer | ||
6 likes toastwhisperer I might have influenced the costume choice a little. #firstcomicon #nycc #usetheforceluke | ||
Robin couldn’t stop laughing the first time he’d called home. “What did I tell you?” She wheezed between giggles. “I told you there were latent Ravenclaw genes in me.”
“You didn’t give birth to him.”
Robin shrugged, which was definitely going to get on her nerves. “I don’t give a fuck, he counts. It was mitosis or something.”
toastwhisperer | ||
6 likes toastwhisperer No one try the smoothies. #maybetrythesmoothies #stpatricksday | ||
The trouble with the holidays was it was always the same. You tried to get out early and all shit would break loose. They were shorthanded and a lot of the new kids were still wet behind the ears. It still felt a little weird she wasn’t one of them most of the time. “I know this is taking ages. You want me to call your ma? Get her to take you?”
“You said you were going to.”
Uggggh. “I know I did. But you gotta be bored shitless, kid. I could be a bit yet.”
“S’okay.”
Robin lent over to see what he was scribbling, to find a layout of the office. It wasn’t bad for a kid. Definitely some potential there for some extreme nerdery. She could feel something akin to pride at that. “What are you doing?”
“Has this always been your desk?”
“I think so,” Robin said. She couldn’t remember not having this particular one. Though she thought Andy might have moved over one. “Why?”
“I’m trying to figure out where everyone sat.”
“Why?”
He waved her off with an emphatic “Details.” Apparently he didn’t want to elaborate either.
“Shit, kid.” She smiled. “It’s almost like we’re related.”
“What was the name of the Death Eater Andy was always getting it with?”
Robin bit off the piece of tape and stuck the roll on the side of the dresser. Shit, she should have just gotten everything pre-wrapped. Fuck the homemade shit. No one cared about whether you did it yourself, right? Fucking holidays. “Pippi Longstocking?”
“His real name, not your funny names.”
“Aw, you think I'm funny,” she put her hand to her chest in an exaggerated, touched gesture. “Avery. Why?”
“There's an Avery a couple of years above me.”
That tracked. He'd copped af plea and she'd heard through the nebulous grapevine little Pippi was now a Daddy Pippi. Horrifying thought, actually. “You get any shit from them?”
“No. I just wanted to know if it was the same one.”
Robin shrugged, “Probably his kid. He's Andy and Lou's age, so he'd probably have a kid about your age. Why?”
“I dunno.” He seemed uncomfortable. “What if Andy picks me up some time and he's there?”
Robin considered it. “They've both grown up. I mean, Andy was born a perpetual forty but no one is going to start shit. He'll just side-eye the shit out of him, same as he always does with people who blagged their way out of the consequences of their own fuckery.” The she amended. “Maybe a food fight. They did one at a Tesco once.”
toastwhisperer | ||
6 likes toastwhisperer My throwback today is to my first day as full fledged Auror when I was 20 and the last ID picture I'd ever need. It's been a long a journey. Despite a bit of a blip, I grew up in that office. I made life long friends and worked with some of the best people I could ever hope to know. Whatever else happens, I'm proud to have been there and will miss you guys. It's just time for a new adventure. #tbt #newbeginnings | ||
"It won't last," Savage said, not even slurring despite being several drinks in. Robin had lost any constitution she had for hard liquor years ago, so she was definitely slurring more than he was.
"Maybe not." Robin admitted. She'd been looking into what to do next, and had a few brochures for classes and qualifications to try. Spell forensics or rune decoding? Fact checker or barista? Think of the coffee access. Ultimately, it didn't really matter. Maybe this was the end of her career in law enforcement. Maybe it wasn't. It wasn't the point. The point was that she could choose whatever she wanted and if she didn't like it, she could try something else. That in itself was pretty great feeling.
"Maybe I'll try writing. Put all my blackmail material to good use instead of being a fire hazard in the garage." She snorted. "Did you ever read that book? If even half of that shit is accurate, Elvee was a kinky motherfucker, the Death Eaters were largely stoned. At one point, Luke asked me why a Death Eater had testicles for arms."
"Testacles?"
"Pretty sure you got 'em."
"Haha." He spoke.
Robin shrugged, "It was a fucking typo for tentacles. Do you ever look back at this shit and just think so yeah, that happened. Jesus fucking hell. I'm getting another round in."
So long and thanks for all the fish